First stop in the northern European trip is Paris, France. Directly opposite the hotel is one of the premier train stations in Paris: the Gare du Nord. Inside the station you will find a number of Wi-Fi networks, although not all available everywhere. Look for Orange Wi-Fi, Naxos Wi-Fi, Neuf WiFi and in some places the Ozone Paris network. Orange and Naxos have a number of roaming partners from around the world; Neuf Wi-Fi has less but does also allow free access to train information in the station. Many of Devicescape’s users will find that their accounts already work these hotspots (and should be aware of their roaming fees if they choose to use them while traveling).

Today I am at the Mercure Terminus Nord 3 hotel in Paris, France – just over the road from the famous Gare du Nord train station. It is the first day of a two week trip around northern Europe to verify support for the major European hotspot operators. The hotel has an Orange Wi-Fi hotspot in it, which is working well already. Stay tuned over the next two weeks for my daily reports, including some photos taken with my new Nokia N95 Wi-Fi enabled cellphone (which is running the soon to be released internal beta of Devicescape of course).

Do people really want wi-fi? It seems they do. These people took to the streets of San Francisco to protest the cities slowing down of the planned roll out of the Google/Earthlink muni net that has been planned for sometime. Some have suggested this was a fake protest. BUT some, like muni advocate and expert Esme Vos of MuniWireless , feel that cities service their citizens by rolling out the free service and widespread access. Interested in this debate? Check out the varying sides and see where you land: Google offers S.F. Wi-Fi — for free – SF Gate – October 1, 2005 Details reportedly devil San Francisco muni wireless plan – MuniWireless Dec. 27, 2006 Making Radio Waves – SF Weekly – March 28, 2007 BTW: We, at Devicescape, think everyone wants Wi-Fi!

Devicescape has been slotted into the next SF Beta demo night at 111 Minna Gallery. We will be stationed at Table 1 in the front room starting at 6:30 pm. Come out and see the latest updates to the Devicescape solution, sample some of the devices we are currently working on and talk to our development engineers who are working on developing a full platform for other developers and creatives to build their Mobile 2.0 applications on. The place is fun, festive and seriously “bleeding edge” – both the companies that showcase there as well as the attendees. Details: SF Beta May May 31, 5:30-9:30 PM @111 Minna Gallery Gourmet catering, music throughout the night, a dozen startup demos, and great people all night long. Tickets: $10/20 Online, $15/$25 Door » RSVP Now » Order Tickets Online

We received word today that Devicescape is one of the finalists in the Wireless Broadband Innovation Awards under the category “Best VoIP Product or Service.” There were over 170 entries and we are proud to be among the finalists. The final decision will be announced at an awards ceremony and dinner event to be held at the close of The Wireless Event in London. In case you’re traveling or even live there, here’s the details: The Wireless Event May 23 – 24 Olympia Exhibition Centre – London The Wireless Broadband Innovation Awards May 23

About Us

Devicescape uses the world’s largest Wi-Fi beacon network to deliver the power of high-accuracy consumer presence detection to app and SDK publishers. With independent reach into millions of places of interest, Devicescape presence awareness creates monetization and value-add opportunities at every end user visit. Whether for data gathering, attribution, high- performance in-venue location advertising, or automatic connectivity, Devicescape delivers the power of presence everywhere it counts.